From the archive: Dr. Temple: Nazis aiming at extermination

We were witnessing such an eruption of evil as the world had not seen for centuries, said the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Temple), speaking yesterday at a meeting at the Albert Hall, London, to protest against Nazi persecution of the Jews.

What was happening in Europe was so horrible that the imagination refused to picture it. "Our people as a whole remain very largely unaware of it," he said, "and even when we are aware it is difficult to feel the horror appropriate to the facts.

"There is a terrible line in Mark Antony's speech over the dead Julius Caesar in Shakespeare's play: 'All pity choked with custom of fell ideas,' [Shakespeare phrased it 'fell deeds']. We are in danger of sinking to that condition. Events which would have aroused consternation in the first decade of this century now passed almost unnoticed. The sufferings of 1914-1918, and of much of the period between the two wars, led to a hardening of hearts. The drain upon sympathy began to be unbearable.

"We are in danger of becoming morally numb. For this reason alone it would be right that we should meet to face the facts of a monstrous evil. The purpose is not to stir up the spirit of vengeance. The purpose is to keep our moral perception clear, to utter the judgment of civilised men upon a reversion of barbarism.

"It is hard to resist the conclusion that there is a settled purpose to exterminate the Jewish people if it can be done. What else is the explanation of recent occurrences in France?

"At first it seemed possible to explain the German demand for surrender of Jewish refugees in unoccupied France as a need for additional labour power. At first only men of working age were demanded. Later women were claimed with the option of leaving their children, and many, heart-broken, left their children not expecting to see them again but hoping that they might live to see the better day. Now the children also are being deported from two years old and upwards.

"There is every reason to fear that a large proportion of those deported are destined for the ghastly ghetto in Eastern Galicia, where thousands of Jews have already perished."

Dr. Hertz, the Chief Rabbi, said: "There can be no safety for our children and no safety for the heritage of man anywhere so long as men who call evil good and who take darkness for light continue to blight the souls and lives of men.

"We must resolve never to rest until Nazism is totally swept away like so much poison smoke."